Social engineering is the art of manipulating people into performing actions or divulging confidential information. While similar to a confidence trick or simple fraud, the term typically applies to trickery for information gathering or computer system access and in most cases the attacker never comes face-to-face with the victim.

by Kage on Thu Jan 07, 2010 2:15 pm ([msg=32988]see Re: Social Engineering at its best.[/msg])

This reminds me of how on this one forum I'm on, this guy was banned a couple years ago for scamming everyone. The story of his scams were very well known, even by people relatively fresh to the site. This other guy joined a couple months after the first one was banned, and became very reputable. So much so that they almost made him an admin. One thing leads to another, and 2 years later, everyone realizes, "shit, this is the same guy."

So, like Insomniac said, you never know who's behind the screen.

... Though in this case, I actually do on some accounts since I've met about 40 of them last July.

by Theminatar on Tue Jun 15, 2010 2:44 pm ([msg=40118]see Re: Social Engineering at its best.[/msg])

KenziJane wrote:Heh, some people just bemuse me. That whole post just oozes 'scam'. My little sister wouldn't fall for that nonsense.

But a Ponzi-esque scheme like that can run on for a long time. I wonder how much money he was able to make?

I bet she would if you knew the guy for as long as they did. Something similar happened to this well trusted programmer on the forums I visit, he was selling the game hack, and then after making $400, he left.